Arson

SOUTH BEND -- Investigators have determined the May 8, fire in the 500 block of North Brookfield was an arson. Evidence showed the two separate fires in the home were self-contained and originated independently. Police said an accelerant was used to ignite the fires in the vacant home. The home was uninhabited with no known utilities. Police notified the property's owner.

SOUTH BEND -- Arson is suspected to be the cause of a fire last month in the 400 block of East Bowman Street. Police say that on Oct. 24 an unattached garage at the home caught fire. Two men and a woman were reportedly seen trying to light the fire. The garage is also believed to have been intentionally set on fire Oct. 12. In the most recent case, the blaze caused about $200 in damage, police said.

BENTON HARBOR – Two teens were arrested after Benton Harbor fire officials ruled that a fire at a local community center was the result of arson. Benton Harbor fire and police responded to the blaze at the Bobo Brazil Community Center on Tuesday. A follow-up investigation by the Benton Harbor Department of Public Safety revealed the fire had been set in multiple locations inside the building, public safety officials said in a statement. On Friday, detectives from Benton Harbor and the FBI Violent Crimes Task Force arrested two Benton Harbor suspects, ages 13 and 14, and charged them with arson, breaking and entering with intent, unlawful entry, malicious destruction of property and larceny.

The crime of the week comes from the files of the Berrien County Sheriff's Department. On Aug. 30, unknown suspects pulled back the skirting of a mobile home in the 1900 block of S. 13th St., Niles Township, and slid a car tire underneath the mobile home. The suspects then lit the tire on fire and fled the scene. Crime Stoppers wants the person or people responsible for this arson and will pay up to $1,000 for information leading to their arrest. Crime Stoppers also pays cash rewards on other felony crimes and the capture of fugitives.

SOUTH BEND -- Police have arrested a man accused of hitting the mother of his child and setting her car on fire. South Bend police said officers took custody of the man, 29, after police dogs found him following an incident in the 4900 block of West Belleville Circle about 11:17 p.m. Monday. The woman, 27, reported she was at the home of her child's father Monday when they began arguing, police said. She told police he hit her in the face and dragged her down a hallway. She said he then walked outside, broke the windshield and window of her car, took a can of gas out of the vehicle and set fire to the car, police said.

MISHAWAKA -- Police are investigating a report in which a woman told officers the father of her child started a fire in her car. Officers arrived at the home on Linden Avenue Saturday morning and saw the front seat of the car smoldering, according to a Mishawaka police report. The woman said the man came to the house about 6 a.m., doused a roll of paper towels and toilet paper in rubbing alcohol and lit them on fire in the car. The woman told police he broke the car window to throw the burning paper inside.

SOUTH BEND -- A 34-year-old South Bend man was arrested early Saturday on preliminary charges of arson and resisting arrest, according to South Bend police. Police were called to a house in the 1600 block of North Huey Street about 3:30 a.m. Saturday by an alarm. An officer saw a man running from the house and chased him, according to a police report. Several houses away, the suspect ignored orders to stop and tried to jump a fence, so the officer used a Taser on him, according to the report.

HOBART, Ind. -- Police in northwestern Indiana arrested three middle school students and charged them with arson after the mother of one of the children went to police with a photo her 12-year-old girl took of a 13-year-old friend using an accelerant to set fire to an abandoned house. Hobart police Lt. David Grissom told The Times of Munster that neighbors reported seeing the two girls and an 11-year-old boy in the area before and after the June 3 fire. Grissom said the three at first denied they were involved, but later said they started it for excitement.

MISHAWAKA — Fire officials suspect a fire that destroyed an addition to a Mishawaka house was the result of arson. Firefighters responded to the blaze at a home in the 300 block of Mariellen at about 6:40 a.m. Monday. When they arrived, a small 5-by-10 structure attached to the house was engulfed in flames. According to a fire official, the addition was where (the fire) appeared to have started. A fire marshal called to the scene to investigate determined the cause of the fire to possibly be suspicious, Mishawaka police said.

SOUTH BEND -- A man allegedly admitted to police that he sneaked into his estranged wife's home through a basement window and set fire to the house using fuel from a gasoline generator. Braulio Martinez Sr., 40, faces a single charge of arson, a Class B felony, and a misdemeanor charge of invasion of privacy for allegedly violating a protective order, according to documents filed Monday in St. Joseph Superior Court. "This is basically another flavor of domestic" violence, city police Capt.

NILES -- Arson is suspected in a pair of house fires this morning that heavily damaged the vacant properties in the 400 block of North Fourth Street in Niles. Niles Fire Chief Larry Lamb labeled the blazes that broke out shortly after 9:30 a.m. "suspicious," adding the buildings at 404 and 410 N. Fourth Street both were ablaze when firefighters arrived. The houses are next door to one another. Police officers were seen checking footprints in the snow, and there were reports that witnesses saw someone leaving one of the houses shortly before flames were spotted.

SOUTH BEND -- Police have arrested a man accused of hitting the mother of his child and setting her car on fire. South Bend police said officers took custody of the man, 29, after police dogs found him following an incident in the 4900 block of West Belleville Circle about 11:17 p.m. Monday. The woman, 27, reported she was at the home of her child's father Monday when they began arguing, police said. She told police he hit her in the face and dragged her down a hallway. She said he then walked outside, broke the windshield and window of her car, took a can of gas out of the vehicle and set fire to the car, police said.

MISHAWKA -- Someone set fire to a storage building at Mishawaka Little League late Saturday, according to a police report. Firefighters responded to the park, at 1140 Carlton St., near LaSalle Elementary School, about 11:25 p.m. The building contained baseball equipment, the report states. The amount of damage is unknown. The report lists the fire as an arson.

SOUTH BEND -- Waking up at 6:30 a.m. to a full day of classroom work and outdoor training exercises might seem grueling, but that's exactly what Anita Shultz, operations chief of Southwest Central Fire Territory, had waited five years to do. Shultz was chosen to train for five weeks in Maine with an “arson dog” to become a canine accelerant detection team. “It was a very intensive program,” Shultz said. “It went on seven days a week without a day off.” Shultz arrived in Maine and began working with a dog that she was matched with based on personality.

SOUTH BEND - Northern Indiana and southwest Michigan have a new tool when it comes to sniffing out arson. Sadie, a 16-month-old Labrador mix, recently completed training standards at the Maine Criminal Justice Academy and will be certified as an accelerant detection canine stationed out of Southwest Central Fire Territory in Portage Township. The dog will be handled by, cared for and live with Anita Shultz, operations chief of the fire territory. Although Southwest Fire Territory owns the dog, it will be available to work arson scenes for all departments within a 150-mile radius, including South Bend, Elkhart and Niles.

NILES -- Informants who provided police with tips that led to the arrest and conviction of two men in connection with the March 14 arson fire that destroyed the Niles Fraternal Order of Police building will partake in a $5,000 award issued by the Michigan Arson Prevention Committee, police in Niles announced Friday. Detective Lt. Richard Krueger said the information was instrumental in the successful prosecutions of Niles residents Kyle Kelley, 19, and Gary Nellans, 25. The two had crashed a stolen vehicle into the building, police said, and had set it on fire apparently in an attempt to eliminate evidence.

CASSOPOLIS -- A 23-year-old Edwardsburg man with a record so extensive that he's classified as a four-time habitual offender is headed to prison for torching businesses in an industrial park in Edwardsburg, causing $712,000 in damage. In addition to receiving a five- to 20-year sentence Friday in Cass County Circuit Court, with credit for 234 days already served in jail, Adam Sheneman was ordered to pay with a co-defendant $712,000 in restitution. Judge Michael Dodge said it was Feb. 15 when Sheneman and the co-defendant broke into several buildings in the park on May Street and doused at least two of them with an accelerant.

CASSOPOLIS - A 23-year-old Edwardsburg man with a record so extensive that he's classified as a four-time habitual offender is headed to prison for torching businesses in an industrial park in Edwardsburg, causing $712,000 in damage. In addition to receiving a 5- to 20-year sentence today in Cass County Circuit Court, with credit for 234 days already served in jail, Adam Sheneman was ordered to pay with a co-defendant $712,000 in restitution. Judge Michael Dodge said it was Feb. 15 when Sheneman and the co-defendant broke into several buildings in the park on May Street and doused at least two of them with an accelerant.